Electrical devices comprise insulated wires extending from one electrical component in the device to another. Each insulated wire is cut to a selected length and the conductor within the insulated wire is electrically connected to a terminal. The preparation of each wire typically includes pulling a selected length of the wire from a spool or reel, removing kinks or bends from the wire, cutting the wire at the specified length and appropriately preparing the opposed cut ends for termination. The preparation of the wire ends may include stripping a selected length of insulation from the wire to expose the portion of the conductor to be terminated.
Wires incorporated into an electrical apparatus may be of various gauges, conductivities and lengths. To ensure that each wire is installed in its proper location within the electrical apparatus and to facilitate subsequent repair or rewiring, it is common to provide wires with different colors of insulation and with identifying indicia on each wire. The identifying indicia preferably is disposed at one or more preselected locations on the wire, such as in proximity to the terminals. The identifying indicia may be provided in the form of a separate collar, tape or the like. Although identifying means such as these are effective, they generally are costly and time-consuming to apply. Even small cost or time penalties can be significant in the highly competitive electronics industry.
Other wire identifying indicia can be provided by marking the insulation of the wire. The marking can be provided by known hot stamping means to put a substantially indelible marking on a selected portion of the insulation. Hot stamping generally can be carried out as part of the wire preparation process for single insulated wires of constant length. In particular, a known hot stamping apparatus can be disposed in a selected spaced relationship to a wire cutting and stripping means to stamp identifying indicia a selected distance from the cut ends of each wire. Thus, hot stamping can be carried out economically within the normal wire processing cycle of the apparatus described above for preparing and terminating individual insulated wires of the same length.
The prior art hot stamping apparatus for wires is known to include a hot stamping head having means for stamping a selected code from a plurality of optional codes. The known apparatus has a maximum of twelve optional codes from which one code is selected. The changing of codes typically requires manual indexing of code wheels on the stamping head. Thus, a plurality of wires of a first code will be marked. The entire assembly of the wire marking apparatus and wire processing apparatus will then be stopped to enable indexing of the code wheel to a new code for marking on a second plurality of wires by the prior art apparatus.
The indelible material applied to the wire is delivered to the stamping head on a tape. The tape will carry an indelible marking material of a color that is selected in accordance with the wire being marked. For example, a dark color wire will require a light color code, while a light color wire will require a darker code. The changing of wires being processed and marked may also require the changing of marking tapes in the prior art apparatus.
Electrical devices generally are not limited to a complex array of individual wires. In the more typical instance, the wires define portions of harness assemblies wherein a plurality of generally parallel wires extend between at least a pair of multi-terminal connectors. The prior art wire marking apparatus would require the individual and sequential marking of the prepared and terminated wires for subsequent insertion into the multi-terminal connectors of the harness assembly. This has been a fairly slow process with the wire marking cycle times being slower than the cycle times for the harness assembly equipment. The use of prior art wire marking equipment is complicated even more if different color wire markings are required in view of the different color wire insulations employed. Further complications are presented if the wires in a particular harness assembly are not all of the same length. The requirement for different lengths of wire would require changes to the prior art wire stamping equipment that would substantially interrupt the normal cycle times.
In view of the above, it is an object of the subject invention to provide a wire marking apparatus for efficiently placing identifying indicia onto wires.
Another object of the subject invention is to provide a wire marking apparatus for readily accommodating wires of different respective lengths.
An additional object of the subject invention is to provide a wire marking apparatus that can place any of a plurality of codes onto the wires.
A further object of the subject invention is to provide a wire marking apparatus that can selectively stamp an appropriate wire identifying indicia onto any of a plurality of wires in a color selected in accordance with the color of the wire insulation.
Still a further object of the subject invention is to provide a wire marking apparatus that can be programmed for automatically marking wires with identifying indicia as part of the normal cycle time for a wire processing in a multi-wire harness assembly apparatus.